When we discussed having a woman play Doctor Who a couple of years ago I had a moan about it, but now that they've made the announcement I think I was wrong and it's going to be great.

Jodie Whittaker is a good actress (she was good in Broadchurch). I'm also just pleased we're getting rid of Moffat.

The last season was actually one of the best Moffat seasons in my view, because there was a lot less of this stuff about the Doctor being a tortured soul and reliving traumas from his childhood and wishing he had a girlfriend, and a lot more fighting alien invasions.

But I did think Bill's ending was a bit of a cop out because from what I can recall of Pilot, Bill hardly knew that girl. It was hardly a moving love story across time, space, death and reality because she was just some girl Bill had a bit of a crush on. If you want me to get a lump in my throat about how one person followed another to the end of the universe, you have to put a bit of work in making me care about the relationship in the first place.

I did like the idea that we never quite knew for sure whether Missy had given up her evil ways (though those of us old enough to remember Degaldo's Master would surely not have been shocked at the idea that the Master could work with the Doctor when it suits him/her (although I love John Simm's psycho-bastard version of the Master too)).

I like the choice. Will depend on the material though, bearing in mind that Chibnall is 'Cyberwoman' and 'That Fucking Moon Episode Where It's a Dragon and It's Also A Thinly Disguised Abortion Discussion'.

What I love is watching them complain that it's just being done to appease SJWs or some such. No, dumbfucks, in a show where the lead character changes bodies at death, the possibility of changing gender is very much a gun on the mantlepiece--it's something that either has to happen eventually *OR* you have to get the Doctor explaining that no Time Lord would ever change gender because genitals are so important. Considering that the one consistent thing about the character all the way back to the 1960s is a contempt for human small-mindedness and prejudices of all kinds, that would pretty much fuck with the basic premise of the show more thoroughly than if he changed into a left-handed genderfluid pansexual multiracial half-Inuit half-Zulu socialist vegan.

I'm not really a fan of the show and think most of the opposition is from angry neckbeards but I've never liked of having a role that has usually been occupied by a man (or a particular race) and giving it to a woman (or another race). I think they should come up with their own characters and heroes and not just try and shoehorn someone else in. Creating characters that are designed for women from the beginning, like the most recent Wonder Woman, would be the better way to go. But yeah, getting worked up over this casting change is really dumb. If you don't like the change then just don't watch the show.

I think they should come up with their own characters and heroes and not just try and shoehorn someone else in. Creating characters that are designed for women from the beginning, like the most recent Wonder Woman, would be the better way to go.

Which "they" are you talking about here? What does "designed for women" mean?

Yes, because putting a woman in a role of a shapeshifting alien that has been 13 different people over the last 50 years is shoehorning.

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something. We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail

I'm not really a fan of the show and think most of the opposition is from angry neckbeards but I've never liked of having a role that has usually been occupied by a man (or a particular race) and giving it to a woman (or another race). I think they should come up with their own characters and heroes and not just try and shoehorn someone else in. Creating characters that are designed for women from the beginning, like the most recent Wonder Woman, would be the better way to go. But yeah, getting worked up over this casting change is really dumb. If you don't like the change then just don't watch the show.

Yeah, this whole post was a rookie mistake and I hate to see it ; However, I'm going to forbear from savaging you merely because you're entirely wrong and have no grasp of the subject at hand. What I WILL say is that most of the female super heroes from 'the good old days' were just rebranded men anyway and it's only nowadays we actually get to see some of them being actual women.

Some people, for example, did not like Jessica Jones on Netflix. And that's ok because as I've said, it's occasionally ok for people to be utterly fucking wrong and ignorant.

TLDR : This was in no way shoehorned in. This has been a long time coming. And I can only hope that she gets better scripts than the recently awesome actors did. Because if she doesn't, you can guarantee some cunts will just straight up blame her.

My wife didn't know about the "Silent Night" truce in World War I, so her amazement that it was a real thing was half the price of admission. But basically, I could really have done without the continuity-faithful depiction of the First Doctor as wanting the Negress Companion to do a better job of cleaning the TARDIS and other "oh god we are so socially progressive these days" back-patting.

The First Doctor is a member of an immortal race of elitist aliens who change genders and races routinely and who, in his first life, is only newly familiar with Earth and its history, if we're to believe much of the series. The idea that he is actually what he acts like--a crotchedy, conservative Oxford don who is not very comfortable with women and colored people and so on--is kind of offensive to the entire show's mythology. So this was a chance to undercut that and have the story be about "What's it's like to get a glimpse of the depressing, complicated consequences of deciding to run from your own people and be a 'do-gooder' in ways they won't be?" That's a cool idea--and it is precisely what might resolve the current Doctor's own dramatic impasse--he's already decided once to commit to an uncertain future even knowing what it might involve.

Instead it was just a muddle. A few lovely moments, mostly the standard Moffat malarky. Too bad.

Didn't the two older folks make a comment that they thought the coil thing was trying to bring down the crane? Whether it was or not, I'm pretty sure that's what they were thinking, so they had to stop it.

I'm reserving judgement. Nothing about her makes me think "This is not the Doctor." She had some decent lines, comedic timing was maybe a bit off. The episode itself was a bit generic, won't appear in any "Top 10" lists, but the FX were a step up in general.

Also if we can go an entire season without the Doctor apologizing for defeating evil aliens and creatures that kill innocent people, that would be much appreciated.

Anyhoo, I thought she was convincing as the Doctor. I think partly because she was doing a passable quotation of Tennant mashed up with Davidson, which is fine. Capaldi spent three or four episodes semi-quoting Matt Smith with his body language and phrasing before he moved on, etc.--it's a thing they do, consciously or otherwise, to root their version in past versions.

Also if we can go an entire season without the Doctor apologizing for defeating evil aliens and creatures that kill innocent people, that would be much appreciated.

Anyhoo, I thought she was convincing as the Doctor. I think partly because she was doing a passable quotation of Tennant mashed up with Davidson, which is fine. Capaldi spent three or four episodes semi-quoting Matt Smith with his body language and phrasing before he moved on, etc.--it's a thing they do, consciously or otherwise, to root their version in past versions.

That she would lean towards Tennant is no shock, she knows the man well from broadchurch.

I liked the feeling that the character isn't the Onrushing Storm or the Time Lord Victorious--this is actually DOING what Moffat seemed to want to do with the "I'm just an idiot with a box who helps some blokes out" line in Capaldi's first season.

I do think the entire show could use a freshening up more than a new TARDIS and Doctor, but I still ike it.

I like the entire cast this season so far--these are very engaging companions, especially Graham, who after only two episodes might be one of my favorite companions. Though I will not be surprised if his cancer becomes a plot arc later.

Looks like they also decided to have a kind of season arc as well--an enemy who is recurrently in the backdrop, and a mystery tied into the Doctor. Ok. Hope it's a good one.

Waiting to see what Whitaker's character settles into--she's still doing a near-Tennant take with a bit of Peter Davidson mixed in.

So far I'm just not feeling it with the new doctor. I didn't really care for Capaldi either. Maybe I'm just getting tired of the show.

I didn't care for Matt Smith or Capaldi but I suspect that was the scripts not the actors.

Then again, I started watching when Jon Pertwee was The Doctor, was over it when the 5th arrived (mostly because we also watched All Creatures Great and Small and I couldn't separate him from his role as a vet). I thoroughly enjoyed Eccleston's take and wish there had been more and Tennant's run was fun.

"No man is an island. But if you strap a bunch of dead guys together it makes a damn fine raft."